So, you’ve got a brand new blog that looks really cool, is fully optimized for the search engines, and is set up for monetization.

How do you get Traffic to your Blog?

Well, first thing’s first. You need quality content, and a lot of it. But, before you start creating content, you’re going to need to do some basic keyword research. You want to focus your blog on keyword search terms that a large amount of people search for on a daily basis. For instance, if one keyword phrase gets 80,000 searches per month, it’s much better to focus on than a keyword phrase that gets only 200 searches per month.

The higher the search volume, the higher potential for traffic. At the start of your blog, you will want to focus on 10 to 12 high volume keywords related to your niche. As your blog gets bigger you can start focusing on more long tail keywords to get some of the less competitive search traffic.

So, how do I find Good Keyword Phrases?

There are many different keyword research softwares out there, and as you may already know, I fully endorse Market Samurai and use it almost every day. Here you can read my full Market Samurai Review. But, there are some really good free options that you can use if you’re just getting started.

This tool is great for coming up with a list of keywords. Let’s say for example, your website is about salt water aquariums. Simply paste your keyword into the search box, and click search. There will be a big list of keyword phrases along with their monthly search volume. You will want to click where it says “global monthly searches” so that it will sort by the highest volume. You will now want to scroll through and create a list of a dozen or so keywords that cover the main aspects of your niche.

You will now want to search each of the keywords on Google with quotes like this: “salt water tanks” and see if there are any advertisers on the right side (paid ad spots).

As you can see, there are a lot of advertisers bidding on that specific keyword phrase on Google Adwords. This is good news. The next step is to go back to the Google Keyword tool, and click on “traffic estimator” at the top left of the page. Enter your keyword phrase and click on “estimate”. This will tell you how much money advertisers are willing to spend on just 1 click. You want this to be atleast $1 or more in most cases.

This is definitely a great keyword based on the research. You will want to do this with each keyword. It can be time consuming, but is worth it. If you end up getting Market Samurai you can get all of these results for as many keywords as you like with just one click. It’s a massive time saver!

After you have found 10 to 12 really good keywords, it’s time to start writing content. You should have at least one page for each individual keyword phrase to get started. This will be the base for your website. The best way (in most cases) is to create pages for your main keyword phrases. These will pretty much be articles. They can be product review pages, detailed information / how-to articles, or a page promoting a single product. Once you have made a page for each of your keywords, you’ll simply need to make regular blog posts using a mix of the various keyword phrases you are targeting, as well as posts with long tail keywords. You can then link your posts back to your articles.

Now, this is just one way of doing it, and is not set in stone. I haven’t done all of my blogs this way, but I know it works really well. The bottom line, is for your blog to be successful, you are going to need a lot of good quality content, and it will need to be updated often. I recommend making a blog post at least 3 times a week, but once a day is even better!

You are also Going to Need Backlinks, and Lots of Them!

Now, this doesn’t mean to go out there and buy a pack of 5000 backlinks to your website. In fact, that’s a terrible idea. You want the backlinking to your website to look as natural as possible. The way to do this is slow and steady. Once your site is established for a few months, with a lot of unique quality content, then you can start building links fast. But, for right now, slow and steady is the way to go.

One thing to remember, is that quality outweighs quantity. The higher the pagerank of the webpage linking to you, and the more related the content is to your site, the better the effect of the backlink itself. Keep this in mind when building backlinks. You don’t want a backlink from a site about Hoodia Gordonii pointing to your website about turbo engines. It just looks fake, and Google can spot it a mile away. Simply, don’t do it.

Where Can I Get Backlinks?

There are a ton of ways to get backlinks, and in fact there are a lot of really good courses on backlinking such as Backlink Battle Plan, or Backlink Bomb , but I’m just going to go over a few of the basics to get you started.

1. Article Directories – One of the most used methods of getting backlinks is by submitting articles to article directories. You simply write (or pay someone to write for you) articles for different keywords related to your niche, and place a link back to your website in the resource box. You can use anchor text in your link so that Google will start to rank your site higher for each specific keyword. There’s another post here at ProfitBlog.com about article marketing that also mentions some of the sites we recommend posting your articles to. You can read it here: Article Marketing

2. Press Releases – Press releases are great because they offer some really high PR (page rank) backlinks, and are trusted by Google. A Press release is simply a news style article that can be about anything. You can make a press release announcing the start of your new blog, about individual articles, or even about changes you are making to your website. They are very specific in the way your press releases need to be written, but it’s actually pretty easy. When writing it, you need to take the stance of a separate entity / third party. If you must use words like “I” or “We” then you want to put them in a quote like “We feel this is the best solution to our customers current needs.” said John Smith the owner of Digital Mastermind Enterprises.

If written correctly, a press release can become a very powerful tool for getting links and visitors to your site. A lot of blogs pick up press releases, so if your release is eye catching or news worthy then it will most likely get published on several sites within your niche, meaning quality related backlinks!

Press releases can also be a great way to enhance your credibility online. Due to the nature of a press release, it is naturally going to be more trusted by a reader than an advertisement. This is because people are conditioned to trust the press as an outside or independent source of information.

It’s actually surprising how little I see this method being used by other bloggers, since it’s relatively easy to write a press release and there are a lot of sites that will let you submit them for free. It seems like almost every time I submit a press release, It shows up on the first page of Google for one of my keywords. There are many factors that can come into play which all result in more backlinks.

Where Can I Submit Press Releases?

Submitting a press release can be expensive if you want to get it out to the major Page Rank sites such as PRweb.com but there are also several free sites you can sign up to that will publish it as well. If you can afford it, it’s best to go with the paid ones since they have a much higher distribution and a lot more readers. Here is a list of Press Release websites you can use:

3. Forum Posting - By placing a link to your site in forum signatures, and then making regular helpful and informative posts, you can really start to get a lot of traffic and backlinks to your website. People will also read your posts and click the link in your signature for extra traffic as well.

To get your links out there, you can just do a quick scan through the forum for any threads that look like something you could comment on or offer some good information about. Every post you make is more exposure and backlinks to your website.

If you have 2 or 3 forums that you can visit regularly, and make 2 or 3 posts per day on each, your backlinks will really start adding up. This is by far one of the easiest ways to get backlinks. To find forums in your niche, simply type this into Google search:

“keyword” forum

Keep your keyword phrase in quotes. This should turn up a lot of results. Of course, you can join as many forums as you like, but 2 or 3 busy forums is a great start.

4. Blog Commenting - Blog commenting is starting to be a really good way to get quality backlinks. More and more people are starting to get social, and interacting in the comment sections of related blogs. Google finds these to be natural links as long as the blog is simlar in nature to yours.

To keep up with blog posting, you can find a few blogs in your niche that are updated regularly, and start posting comments on them with a link back to your website. A great way to find more blogs is to look at each blogger’s blog roll (list of other bloggers they are friends with). Once you find these blogs, you can subscribe to their RSS feeds, or use Google Reader to know when a new blog post is made.

This is an easy way to get quality links fast. You can also use a software like Blog Comment Demon to semi-automate the process, but it’s really not that difficult to do once you have a list of blogs to visit.

5. Post to your blog regularly! - If you have everything on your blog setup correctly (SEO, WordPress PLugins, Etc…) then everytime you make a blog post, you’ll naturally get more traffic and backlinks automatically. You need to make it a habit to post 3 or more times per week, up to 2 times per day. The more content you have, the more likely people will find your website in the search engines!

These are just a few of the basic ways I use to get traffic to my websites, and I recommend you do the same! Start with these methods first, and then start adding new ones to the mix once your site grows. Ultimately, you’ll want to start outsourcing all of these tasks, and start creating more blogs.

Leave your comments below, and I can’t wait to hear about your results!

About Ben C.

Ben is the co-founder of ProfitBlog.com and a regular writer and contributor to the site. He has been involved in internet marketing since 2005, and has created many profitable websites in several different niche markets. While many of his sites are still consistently making money, (and a few have been sold off for a nice payday), he's recently grown a passion for sharing his knowledge of online marketing with others through his various training courses, as well as through blogging.
You can learn more about Ben and his story by Clicking Here

2 thoughts on “How to Get Traffic to Your Blog”

Great tips here, Ben. There’s actually like a billion ways to get traffic to our blogs. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but there really is a lot of different ways and it’s hard to list all of them. But you did an excellent job writing all the most effective ones on here.

One thing though, I would love to add Pinging into that list. It’s a nice way to get our article/posts read, it’s a shame that not everyone uses it or knows about it.

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